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"You 'Should' NEVER Fast"
- Derek Arsenault (CSEP-CPT, PN1)
- 7 days ago
- 4 min read
I got "shoulded" today, by a client. A long time client. No one is immune to the generalization of "shoulding", are they? 🤔
I was having my breakfast and my client asked if this was "first or second breakfast" 🤣. My client then asked if I have this breakfast of granola, yogurt, berries and nuts normally. I said, "A few times a week yes, a couple other breakfasts other days and 1-2 days a week I'll fast until lunch".... Cue the "shoulding"... 👇
"You should NEVER fast" - I was told.
My response was: "Well, we could discuss that topic all day long if you'd like".
However my inside voice was already saying "Blog post worthy 'shoulding' event happening!!!" 🤣
*Please note, I'm speaking on this regarding the GENERAL POPULATION. (Those folks with conditions such as diabetes for example it is ALWAYS recommended to chat with a Nutritionist/Dietitian and Doctor before doing any fasting). And even so, I'm not TELLING ANYONE they "have to" TRY or AVOID fasting. We actually do it naturally by the way (if you eat 3 meals a day - at average meal hours we'll call it - then you're body is fasting from approx 7pm to at least 7am in most cases. That's 12hrs. Just saying). It's not magic - FYI. But it IS more natural to our genes more so than the way we eat NOW. The nice thing is, now we CHOOSE not to eat whereas our ancestors way way back didn't have that luxury. BUT guess what!?!? THEY SURVIVED.
Let's load up some quick facts first ... 👇
🥕There are MANY different ways to fast
👉Focusing on only eating in an 8hr window during the day
👉12-18hr fast (more common and easy - since we sleep for much of it). This is my fasting of choice by the way.
👉Full day fasts
👉Religious fasting traditions (from SEVERAL religions world wide for hundreds of years)
You get the point.
🍲Fasting and Starvation are NOT the same
This was my biggest lesson learned over the past handful of years in regards to fasting. We have this OVER-simplified and fragile view of our AMAZINGLY resilient and adaptable bodies that lead us to believe that the "hunger we feel" if we're an hour or two past a meal (if it's even actually hunger) is our body saying "I'M STARVING!!!" ... It's 100% NOT.
Us modern day humans (the majority of us) don't even know what it feels like to STARVE. STARVATION happens with not only prolonged abscence of food, but you also DON'T KNOW WHEN or WHERE THE NEXT FOOD WILL COME/COME FROM. THAT's starvation.
Fasting on the other hand is CONTROLLED. You're CHOOSING not to eat. But whenever you're ready to do so, FOOD IS AVAILABLE to you.
🍗Especially in the West, we eat TOO MUCH
I'm not calling us North American's gluttons or pigs! BUT we absolutely have a skewed view of what the human body ACTUALLY needs for food thanks to upbringing, abundance in food, food marketing etc... North American portion sizes have a hand in it as well and has skewed our understanding of what healthy portions of food might look like.
With that in mind, our bodies have plenty food to be able to handle some fasting - WITHOUT QUESTION!! We'll be ok.
We can survive without food for a good while!
Providing humans have access to water, we can survive without food for at least 2 months!! (Water = 3-5 days).
But it's not just ME being told "you should never fast" - Plenty of people are getting "shoulded" for many things in their health experiments and practices. That's EXACTLY where we're not taking a step back, clearing out our heads and looking at it slightly differently...
If a human being in a TRUE survival situation can last at least 2-months with NO FOOD
, then a 12-18hr fast, that is controlled and where food is accessible when ready... I'd say is pretty safe, don't you think?
💪 Our body's are NOT fragile. They are INCREDIBLY adaptable and resilient.
The body doesn't only have energy for today. It STORES energy. It USES energy WAY more efficiently than we give it credit for. The body provides what we not only need now, but LATER as well (for struggle or lean times). It's READY if it needs. I'm not saying "let's take our body there" - I'm saying, we HAVE plenty of room to play with if we so choose.
I'll share a post I wrote back just about 2-years ago now when I first seriously started to experiment with fasting. I am still iffy on fasting for the sake of weight loss and certainly fasting in extreme ways. I feel like there are MANY foundational, amazing elements that come out of fasting (that I never expected) that create a new view and relationship with our food when we play around with it.
But to tell ANYONE they "should never fast" - Sorry, I can't get on board with that.
And that said, here are my Zen Blog posts (in case you missed them), along with many more related to come I'm sure, about the importance of NOT "shoulding" ourselves OR others!
We will ALWAYS struggle to find what works for US, when we keep pushing unsolicited opinions and advice on others. There are MANY ways we can be healthy. We "say" we know there's no "one size fits all"... But then we're quick to tell people what they "should" or "shouldn't" do???
Kinda silly eh? 😜
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